It’s going to be cold here the next couple of days.
Like, close-all-the-schools-in-the-entire-state-of-Wisconsin cold.
So, since it’s still above freezing today, I decided to throw on a hat, lace up my sneaks and head outside for a brisk walk. I bought the Run, Zombies! 5k app recently and thought I’d give it a whirl. It’s funny because I don’t like zombies, but I do like stories and I heard this app was fun, so…why not?
I stepped outside, pressed “Start Mission” and began to walk. It began with a two minute clip of a woman in a plane taking supplies to a remote village when suddenly the plane was shot down. The radio operator from the village kept trying to make contact and eventually advised anybody who was still alive to get to safety. Then…
Nothing.
Just silence.
Apparently the app couldn’t connect to my music. The timer was still going, but it wasn’t telling me anything about how far I had gone or how much time was left. I was really frustrated, but just kept walking. Would another clip start to play at some point? Did I do something wrong? Every now and then, between dodging patches of ice, I’d pull my glove off with my teeth and fiddle with my phone, trying to figure it out. Nothing seemed to work. Eventually I just gave-up and walked home.
When I got home, I realized something. Even though the app didn’t work the way I thought it would…it still got me out of the house and I ended-up walking for 30 minutes. So, it kind of did work. After the fact I figured out how to setup the Quick Playlist for the music and got deeper into the settings, so I’m confident it will work better next time. And sure, I could have taken advantage of that time and “cleared my mind” or prayed or whatever, but I’m not going to beat myself up over that. My goal was to walk and that’s what I did. Mission accomplished.
We all want things to work as planned. That’s natural. It’s also inevitable that things will not go as planned sometimes. What I learned today is that just because something goes differently than planned, it doesn’t mean all is lost. It can still work.
In fact, sometimes those are the best, most interesting times to learn something.
Has that ever happened to you?
